Monthly Archives: February 2013

For a little Tuesday lunch action we swung by Barn Barn Singapore Chicken Rice near Toul Tom Pong Market. Their signature dish is, as you may have guessed, Singaporean-style Hainanese chicken with rice. I’ve been there a few times and it’s pretty good so we thought we’d stop by and make a review of it.

It was not to be. They’d run out of chicken just as we were arriving so what follows is a review of a chicken and rice joint, without the signature chicken and rice….

Tea

Justin – It seems that outside of the chicken, the menu is far more Khmer inspired so I thought I’d throw myself in and get some prahok. As you can see it came with rice and some raw veggies to dip in the prahok. It tasted really good and was much more like a fish curry than the smellier versions of prahok you can get out there.

‘Khmer paste’ aka prahok with rice and veg $2

Lots of flavour, I would definitely order it again. My only criticism is that it’s not that much food so you’ll probably want to order something else too… which is easy as all the foods are $1-2. They also have home-made soy milk, not everyones cup of tea but it’s nutritious and delicious and only 2000 riel for a bottle.

‘Khmer paste’ aka prahok with rice and veg $2

Tim – Being the culinarily unadventurous Nyam Penh contributor, I went with the standard Bi Char (Fried Rice), with Chicken of course. Barn Barn was pretty full, so it took a while for my meal to come out. I could only look on at Justin’s prahok with a mix of curiosity and a tempered sense of disgust. Gone was the dish that I had long associated with fish gizzards drying on the side of a hot, dusty road; only to be replaced with something approaching a curry. I eat curry, could I eat prahok? We’ll never know… chicken fried rice it was.

Fried rice $2

The fried rice was good… as good as any fried rice with bits of chicken and vegetables can be. There was the standard side of chillies in soy sauce and a couple of slices of cucumber to make the meal look like it wasn’t designed for a child.

Fried noodles with chicken broth $2

Tim – Branching out, I decided to also order the deep fried mushrooms. These were quite bready which meant they were also more oily than I was expecting. If you’re intrigued, I’d recommend sharing the dish so you don’t break through the grease ceiling, that mythical limit to the amount of fatty foods you can ingest before hating yourself. I don’t think I’d try them again.

Deep fried mushrooms $1

Justin – I also ordered what they called yam baskets. I’m 95% sure they are actually grated taro rather than yam but either way they are really good. A little greasy but the crunchy and sweet shredded roots are delicious and with the sweet chilli sauce made for a good side. Crumbly though…

Crunchy ‘yam’ baskets… actually made of taro $1

Peanut filled cakes and sticky rice with coconut 3/$1

Justin – The desserts were okay. The peanut-filled cakes tasted good but were stuck like glue to the banana leaf ‘wrappers’ they were sitting on. The sticky rice and coconut was fine but maybe a bit to jelly-like for me.